The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) has expressed deep concern over what it describes as the government’s blatant mismanagement and corruption within the power sector—insisting that ordinary Ghanaians, especially petroleum consumers, must not be made to pay for the consequences through unjust levies.
In a fiery interview with Joy Business, Executive Secretary of COPEC, Duncan Amoah, criticized the government’s approach to resolving the ballooning power sector debt, stating unequivocally that the situation was not a mystery but a result of longstanding systemic failures.
“The power sector debt is not out of vacuum. Something led to the accumulation of the debt. The transmission losses is one, poor revenue generation and collection, is two, and the use of the revenue is three,” he said.
He further alleged that misappropriation and corruption within the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) have worsened the sector’s financial woes.
“It is as if the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has money that they can use for corrupt things in the power sector and we have allowed them to misuse the money and then they come back to tell us there is no money to pay for the Independent Power Producers and fuel.
“So Ghanaians must pay through levies,” Amoah bemoaned.
The Executive Secretary did not mince words when he pointed to procurement irregularities and what he described as a disregard for logic and law.
“The procurement breaches and corruption and blatant disregard for the laws and sometimes even common sense. We must check that,” he stressed.
COPEC is therefore urging the government to explore more sustainable and transparent means to settle the growing debt owed to Independent Power Producers, rather than imposing a one cedi levy on petroleum products—an action it says unfairly shifts the burden onto consumers who are already stretched thin.
